Sai Protocol has announced the launch of its new decentralized perpetual contract exchange (Perps DEX), which combines fully on-chain settlement with a centralized trading platform (CEX)-inspired experience. According to Sai’s official statement, the platform includes incentives totaling $25,000 in its inaugural competitive event, “Let’s Go Saicho.”
Decentralized derivatives markets, and perpetual DEXs in particular, have experienced significant growth over the past two years, evolving from niche instruments to key players in the crypto ecosystem. According to on-chain data, perpetual contract DEXs surpassed $1 trillion in monthly trading volume by the end of 2025, marking a milestone in the development of these markets outside of centralized exchanges.
On the one hand, professional traders began showing greater interest in trading derivatives without relinquishing custody of their funds to a centralized entity. The ability to maintain full control over capital, while accessing leverage and advanced tools, proved especially attractive after the risk events that affected centralized exchanges in previous cycles. On the other hand, the user experience improved considerably.
The interfaces of the new perpetual DEXs increasingly approached the fluidity and sophistication of CEXs, reducing the operational friction that historically limited mass adoption.
This was complemented by significant technical advancements in on-chain settlement and execution mechanisms. Improvements in infrastructure, optimization of gas costs, and hybrid matching models enabled more efficient execution with lower latency and less slippage.
What does Sai Perps offer?
In this context, Sai Perps emerges, aiming to position itself within this new generation of infrastructures. According to the project, the platform offers fully on-chain settlement, meaning that all transactions are recorded and executed directly on the blockchain, eliminating intermediaries and centralized control points. This approach prioritizes transparency and verifiability, two attributes that have become increasingly valued by the market.
At the same time, Sai attempts to replicate the typical trading experience of a centralized exchange. It incorporates limit orders, stop-loss orders, and advanced risk management tools designed for active traders who trade frequently and use leverage. This combination of sophisticated execution with decentralized infrastructure aims to reduce the historical gap between performance and security.
The launch also includes an initial incentive of $25,000 distributed through a competition designed to encourage liquidity and early participation. This type of strategy is common in DeFi, as it allows for a faster initial volume boost and attracts early adopters, although the real challenge will be sustaining that activity once the incentives end.
The proposal attempts to resolve a long-standing dichotomy: CEXs offer speed and market depth, but require fund custody and are subject to regulatory and operational risks; traditional DEXs provide security and transparency, but often sacrifice execution performance and user experience.
Which metrics to monitor to evaluate Sai Perps’ success
To assess whether Sai Perps achieves sustainable adoption beyond the initial launch momentum, the first key metric will be daily and monthly on-chain trading volume. Steady growth in volume would indicate real demand from active traders, while sharp drops after the promotional period could reveal an over-reliance on temporary incentives.
Another fundamental indicator will be open interest, which reflects the total capital committed to active positions. Unlike volume, which can be driven by short-term speculative rotation, open interest shows the actual level of exposure that traders maintain within the protocol. In parallel, Total Value Locked (TVL) in liquidity vaults will allow us to measure the confidence of capital providers and the effective market depth available for executing trades with low slippage.
The trend in the decentralized derivatives market
It will also be crucial to observe the number of active addresses interacting with the protocol, as this data helps distinguish between a concentration of activity among a few players and a more distributed adoption. Finally, one of the most critical points will be post-incentive retention: that is, whether volume and activity are sustained once the initial $25,000 competition ends.
More broadly, these metrics should be interpreted within the overall trend of the decentralized derivatives market. During 2025, per-product DEXs processed over $1 trillion in monthly volume at various times, marking an all-time high and consolidating a turning point for the sector. This evolution suggests that derivatives liquidity is no longer confined exclusively to centralized exchanges, but is increasingly flowing into on-chain infrastructures.
The participation of professional traders and even institutional players reinforces the idea that these markets have ceased to be experimental and are becoming increasingly structural components within the crypto financial ecosystem.
The launch of Sai Perps represents a further step in the evolution of decentralized derivatives markets, highlighting their technical maturity and the growing appetite for solutions that combine autonomous custody with CEX-style experience.
Its success will depend on both its technical capabilities and actual adoption beyond the initial $25,000 incentive, a figure that can only be verified with on-chain metrics in the coming weeks and months.
